I have a friend who once told me about an experience she had in nursing school. A nurse she was working with for the day was caring for a patient with cancer. One of the patient’s parent’s had died from cancer, the couple had no money, and the patient wasn’t doing well physically. One nurse went down to the cafeteria and bought them chili cheese fries because the couple was craving them. Another nurse found her wallet and handed the couple a $20 bill—all the cash she had with her. Later, all she said to the student (my friend) who was with her was, “They don’t have. I do. So I give. It’s as simple as that.” In other words, “They have a need. I have the means to meet that need. So I meet it.”
It’s as simple as that.
A need.
A means to meet that need.
Action.
And the need is met.
There are many variables and a long story behind this decision, but at its core, it is a choice to follow the Lord’s calling to meet a need with the means He has provided. It is with great excitement I share with you this decision: my friend Amy and I will be moving to Cambodia for six months. She leaves in November, and I leave in January.
It is with great excitement I share this. And fear. And nervousness. And trust.
The process to move has been anything but simple. For those who have journeyed with me this past year, you know how I have struggled. How I witnessed suffering and death in the Cambodian hospital, how the trauma that happened to my heart and soul from seeing those things broke me, how I am relearning who I am and who Jesus is. This is not an easy decision to go back.
Am I scared? Yes.
Am I thrilled? Yes.
Broken and weak? Yes!
Yet the Lord says He uses the weak; He perfects His power in weakness.
The needs in Cambodia are overwhelming: physical needs for food, clean water, clothing; system-wide needs for education, healthcare, justice; emotional needs for healing from genocide less than 50 years ago; spiritual needs for knowledge of Jesus, explanation of the Gospel, discipleship. In moving, we know our weakness, and we know we cannot meet their needs. We do not have the means. The truth is, we are just as broken as they are.
Yet our God does have the means. He meets our needs daily, physically and mentally and emotionally and most of all, spiritually—bringing us out of spiritual poverty and reminding us that we are His. He wants to meet the Cambodians’ physical and mental and emotional and spiritual needs, too. For His love and His riches and His abilities are more overwhelming than the most overwhelming needs.
There is great need in Cambodia.
We have a God who has the means to meet all of their (and our) needs and more!
He has called us to action, to bring His name to the nations.
And their needs will be met. Not by me, not by my friend Amy, not by you, not by any missionary or NGO1 or visionary or strategist. Their needs will be met by Jesus. He is, as someone told me recently, the real power source. He is the One who transforms hearts and minds and communities and villages and systems and provinces and countries.
And believing this for Cambodia and all the world, we go.
I would love to share with you more about how the Lord is leading and moving! If you would like to receive updates, join us in prayer, or hear more about this journey, please let me know. I would love to chat with you!
1) NGO: non-governmental organization